I'm Robert Marshall, director and senior consultant at SMSMarshall Ltd who's specialism is in the Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager product and all of its dependent products covering all aspects from Architecture, Implementation, Migration to Break-Fix.
I've been using computers for over 30 years, beginning as a programmer and now a senior consultant in an enterprise product. I only count my career as starting 17 years ago when I began my first serious role as a deployment engineer. I've seen 8 bit through to 64 bit, the rise and constant refinement of the GUI, the rise of the Internet from land-line based modem access to the powerful broadband connections we have today, mobile phones come into existence, and I've seen Microsoft evolve from a handful of employees to the company it is now while pretty much tinkering with every OS they have released; As well as seeing an industry that has evolved around those humble beginnings to become what we have today. You could call me an IT Dinosaur but I'm still as mentally able as I was back then, perhaps even more adept now since I've had broad exposure to so much and seen trends come and go. I'm a keen technical puzzle solver, which sets me apart as I love to solve gnarly problems around my area of specialism.
I like to share, i do so by blogging here, and helping out when I can as a moderator and answering questions when I have time on the TechNet Social forums for ConfigMgr 2012 and ConfigMgr 2007. I am a guest poster on TechNet UK Flash magazine and an MVP since 2009 (Most Valuable Professional) in the ECM (Enterprise Client Management) exclusively dedicated to ConfigMgr. the MVP status helps me to help others in more depth due to the closeness to the product group and access to other MVP's the program affords me.
The blogs pretty much about ConfigMgr, but on the odd occasion I also use it as a platform to express my random urges to post something I've stumbled across, be it technical or non-technical, and which I imagine would entertain you or what not as equally as it did me.
(2013)
Seen an interesting issue where the CCMSETUP parameters incorrectly specify MP as SMSMP, resulting in failure and exotic errors appearing in the CLIENT.MSI and CCMSETUP logs:
Just need to fire up CLIENT.MSI in SMSTRACE, find Return value 3 and you'll possibly see the following:
WARNING: The path passed for the TRK file is empty.SMSMP cannot be specified without SMSSITECODE@@ERR:25001MSI (s) (1C!94) [10:10:37:046]: Product: Configuration Manager Client -- Error 25001. Setup failed due to unexpected circumstancesThe error code is 80004005
Error 25001. Setup failed due to unexpected circumstancesThe error code is 80004005MSI (s) (1C:0C) [10:10:37:046]: Machine policy value 'DisableRollback' is 0MSI (s) (1C:0C) [10:10:37:093]: Note: 1: 1402 2: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\Rollback\Scripts 3: 2 Action ended 10:10:37: SmsSetClientConfigInit. Return value 3.MSI (s) (1C:0C) [10:10:37:093]: Note: 1: 1402 2: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\Rollback\Scripts 3: 2 MSI (s) (1C:0C) [10:10:37:093]: No System Restore sequence number for this installation.MSI (s) (1C:0C) [10:10:37:093]: Unlocking ServerAction ended 10:10:37: INSTALL. Return value 3.
At the tail-end of the CLIENT.MSI log file:
MSI (s) (1C:0C) [10:10:37:328]: Note: 1: 1708 MSI (s) (1C:0C) [10:10:37:328]: Product: Configuration Manager Client -- Installation operation failed.
MSI (s) (1C:0C) [10:10:37:390]: Cleaning up uninstalled install packages, if any existMSI (s) (1C:0C) [10:10:37:390]: MainEngineThread is returning 1603MSI (s) (1C:54) [10:10:37:500]: Destroying RemoteAPI object.MSI (s) (1C:D0) [10:10:37:500]: Custom Action Manager thread ending.=== Logging stopped: 20-08-2008 10:10:37 ===MSI (c) (1C:20) [10:10:37:500]: Decrementing counter to disable shutdown. If counter >= 0, shutdown will be denied. Counter after decrement: -1MSI (c) (1C:20) [10:10:37:500]: MainEngineThread is returning 1603=== Verbose logging stopped: 20-08-2008 10:10:37 ===
CCMSETUP log file drops out at the following section: SmsSetClientConfigInit
MSI: Action 13:55:32: SmsSetClientConfigInit. Setting SMS configuration ccmsetupMSI: Setup failed due to unexpected circumstancesThe error code is 80004005 ccmsetupInstallation failed with error code 1603 ccmsetup
It's a classic mistake, easily overlooked.
CCMSETUP should be saying "Command line parameters for CCMSETUP incorrectly specified, unknown parameter SMSMP identified", but it doesn't as you can see above